The Vine: March 20, 2003
Dear Sarah,
Love your site. Love the cat stories. I wish the Vine had been around when I was 15. This is not really a major issue, just one of those things that annoys me a bit whenever I see it.
Maybe things have always been this way, and I’ve only recently noticed this orthographical phenomenon. More and more often, I’m seeing the capitalisation of definite articles before certain proper nouns in the middle of sentences. The one I first noticed was “The Philippines,” as in “The President of The Philippines said today,” and I thought about it and decided, “Well, maybe it’s a literal translation from Spanish — after all, you see ‘El Dorado,’ don’t you?”
But then I started seeing things like “Mr. Pierce, a spokesman for The Cabinet Office,” where I’d have thought a lower case “the” would have done just fine.
Is this usage weird, wrong, normal, or a completely harmless overuse of the shift key?
Confused by “The”
Dear Confused,
According to the Chicago Manual, you only up-cap a “the” when the full corporate name of an entity is called for, i.e. ” © The University of Pennsylvania.” No up-capping (or “up style”) applies for names of newspapers, government organizations, monuments and/or historic buildings, et cetera. Garner doesn’t have a note on it, so I think that’s probably that.
I imagine we could probably find exceptions to that rule, and I tend to up-cap things like that in TWoP recaps, but in the examples you cite, up style is incorrect.
Dear Sars,
I have a quick question about AIM-related etiquette. I am currently in a
long-distance relationship with my soulmate, G, and spend hours chatting
to her most nights. I share a house, and a single phone line, with
another heavyish internet user, T, who is also a good friend. That,
amazingly, is not the problem; we are both way too overly nice and busy
bending over backwards to make concessions to each other to make it
into an issue.
The problem is that it has become pretty obvious that T is consistently
blocking my beloved G on AIM. Is there any way I can ask her why? I know
that it is going to be at least slightly rude to ask that no matter how
I phrase it, but I am worried that if I don’t ask I will let it fester,
think all kinds of horrible thoughts about how T doesn’t like the most
wonderful person in the world, and end up going sour on T, whose
friendship, and housemateship, I value. I know that is not reasonable,
but I am in the obsessed stage, and any insult to my honey is something
I take incredibly personally, and care about more than an insult to
myself.
I mean, I do know that when you block a person it doesn’t necessarily
mean you don’t like them; it can just mean you have other people to
concentrate on, or quite possibly that you just don’t want to spend ages
talking about your housemate. And T seems to like G fine; they were even
becoming pretty good friends, but then she is so overly nice that she
wouldn’t show it if she didn’t like her; also, her niceness means the
blocking is more significant and worrying than it would be coming
from someone who has a talent for setting boundaries.
So…I know that the answer to the question “Should I ask her why?” is
probably no, but if I find out I have to, to stop obsessively dwelling
on it when I am with T, how can I do it in the least rude manner
possible?
Yours,
A Dork For Love
Dear Dork,
I don’t think I understand what you want here. Do you actually care why T blocks G on AIM, or do you just want her to stop doing it? Because I think it’s the former, but either way, it just isn’t a big deal — unless the two of you share an AIM portal or user name and you have to keep unblocking G every time you log on, in which case simply asking her not to do it should suffice.
If that’s not the case, ask yourself what you have to gain by making a federal case out of something as trivial as an AIM block. Seriously. Either T has a relatively benign reason for blocking G — she’s trying to get work done and doesn’t have time to chat — or she just doesn’t want to talk to G, and if she doesn’t want to talk to G, how does it help you to know that? It won’t help you to know that T doesn’t like G; you can’t make her like G. It’s only going to upset you. Ignorance is bliss. Leave it alone.
Hi Sars —
I have a problem. It’s not a very big or important
problem in the grand scheme of things, but it’s making
my life uncomfortable and I’m not sure how to handle
it.
My husband and I bought a beautiful
turn-of-the-century house last year. It needed some
renovation, but it was in fairly decent shape. And my
father-in-law — let’s call him “Workaholic” — is a
contractor, so he’s been helping us out with the
kitchen and the other things we’re fixing.
The problem is that Workaholic likes to have projects
to do. And if he doesn’t have a project around his
house, he’ll come over to our house to work on things.
At, say, nine o’clock in the morning on a Saturday.
With power tools.
This past weekend, my husband and I went out of town
to visit friends. We were in a hurry when we left,
and so the house was a bit of a mess. We left a key
with my brother-in-law so he could feed our cat.
Well, apparently Workaholic decided that even though
we were out of town, it was okay to borrow the key
from my brother-in-law and come over to our place to
work on the house. So, of course, he was appalled by
the post-trip-packing mess. But instead of doing what
a normal person would do and just ignore it, he
cleaned the house. The whole thing. Rearranged
things. I can’t find anything now. Then, he
bitched to my mother-in-law that he “had to clean the
house” before he could install some random wiring
thing that just had to be done this weekend.
It irritates me to no end that he felt totally
entitled to come in without permission when we weren’t
home, move things around, and then complain about all
the work he “had” to do. I think it bothers me even
more than it normally would because our house was
broken into about six months ago, and I’m antsy about
people coming in without us home, or without our
knowledge. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the clean
house — I rarely have the time to play Stepford Wife
and keep the house spotless — but I do resent Workaholic
invading our privacy.
Am I out of line here? I realise he wasn’t trying to
be an ass, but I can’t help but feel a little put out.
Ungrateful
Dear Ingrate,
Workaholic is out of line, and if your husband hasn’t told him so already, he needs to — or you will do it yourself. Tell your husband that he needs to set a few boundaries for his father. Nicely, of course, and in a way that expresses the appreciation of both of you for the help he’s provided, but firmly. He can’t just “come over.” He can’t just “let himself in.” It’s not his house, it’s inappropriate, and he will have to call before coming over. At noon. At the earliest.
It’s hard to have these conversations without ruffling feathers or inspiring a whole “what have they got to hide”/”I only wanted to help, what’s her problem” flap with the in-laws, which is why I really think your husband should do the heavy lifting here (or have him ask his mom to intercede)…but if he won’t do it, inform your father-in-law as pleasantly as you can that he has to phone before stopping by, and he has to give you until midday on the weekends to yourselves. Blame it on the burglary if you like, and reiterate that you appreciate his help, but you just can’t have people coming and going with the belt sander whenever they please, family or not.
Hey Sars,
After moving to our new home, my husband and I adopted a one-year-old male kitty cat from the Humane Society. Neutered, box-trained, affectionate…sounded perfect! And he was — well, mostly anyway, but we weren’t looking for perfection; we were looking for a sweet kitty companion and he seemed to be that indeed.
Then things started getting weird. He started attacking us in our sleep — you know, biting the feet and jumping on the head and once sinking his teeth deep into the mister’s back at about three-thirty AM. We quickly discovered that this wasn’t something he was willing to quit, so we decided to let Kitty sleep outside the bedroom at night, and this seemed to work perfectly for awhile. Kitty realized it was sleep time and curled up cutely on the little bed we made him, and we got sleep for our respective busy days.
But then more problems starting cropping up. He has become extremely aggressive toward me in particular, stalking and attacking me on my arms, leaving scratches and deep bite marks that will probably scar, and continuing to stalk and attack until we give him some time out in our bathroom, which is the only thing that seems to calm him down. We have a squirt bottle which only seems to make him angrier, we’ve tried loud noises like clapping, noise makers, jar full of pennies…doesn’t even faze him. So we’ve tried relaxing a couple of our stricter rules, like letting him on the counters and letting him in the bedroom, and while this does seem to help for a couple days in no time at all he’s back to his jerky ways, and I end up in tears, disinfecting another wound and wondering what I did to make him so damn mad at me.
We play with him regularly, about three to four times a day. He has a plethora of toys, some that need us to manipulate them for him and many that he can and does play with on his own. He is healthy, fed well, uses his litterbox just fine with not a single slip-up, and also regularly cuddles with both my husband and myself, climbing into our laps and purring and giving us love. He exhibits none of the symptoms I’ve come to associate with an unhappy kitty in my many years of cat ownership, except for these aggresive tantrums, which come and go with no apparent common factor other than that he becomes very obviously angry at us, with laid-back ears and huge pupils and sometimes poofy tail. We checked out several books on indoor feline behaviour (he is strictly an indoor kitty, what with coyotes being a factor in this area), and some of the case histories were very on-the-nose. We’ve been doing our best to implement the suggested behaviour training from these books, and while I think that I have seen a very small improvement, there is still attacking.
So I called our vet, who admittedly has only seen the little guy once for a routine check-up after his adoption, and told him the whole story. I was really hoping for some good vet-like advice, or at the worst, for the vet to ask us to bring him in so he could have a look. Imagine my surprise and distress when our vet said quite sternly to me, “Get rid of the cat, NOW, before he really hurts you. I’ve seen this behaviour before and it only gets worse.” I cried for hours; there’s no way I could ever take our little buddy back to that horrible place, where he would most likely be killed because he is not a kitten — and they would ask us if he bites and I would have to say yes, he does. I honestly do not think I could live with myself if I did that. I think this vet is lazy, callous, and a quack, and have already made plans to take him to a different vet in town, but I have no idea what I’ll do if that vet suggests the same thing. I am afraid that maybe my eyes are closed to how bad the problem really is because I love this kitty so much and am so determined to make him “okay.” My husband is concerned for my safety, and I can tell that although he still loves our kitty, he has begun to fear him and to resent having to constantly be on his guard to avoid attacks. I feel like it must be my fault or something I’m doing wrong, because the last family that owned him (and gave him to the shelter because they were moving away) marked on their little history sheet that he didn’t scratch or bite, and that he got along well with their small children. I can not for the life of me imagine him being around children; I’m scared to even have him around our adult friends!
Anyway, you can probably guess my question. From what I’ve described, would you say I am blinding myself to his dangerous behaviour? Or would you say that this vet is full of shit and I’m on the right track with doing more investigation and searching for another vet? I believe strongly as you do that a cat is not a toy or a piece of furniture but a little living being who is depending on me for his safety and well-being, but if he becomes physically threatening to me I am pretty sure I should not let that slide. We are also going to be having family visiting soon, and I’ve already warned them about “psycho kitty.” The response I usually get is, “Oh, it can’t be that bad!” Sadly, it can. From one cat lover to another: a little help?
Tired of Cat-Scratch Fever
Dear Fever,
Okay — before you let yourself get taken over by horrible visions of Kitty going to the gas chamber, take a deep breath and wait to see what the new vet says. It’s possible that she’ll suggest a sedative short-term to break a few of Kitty’s bad habits, or a behavioral program, but try to keep in mind that 1) the cat is not entirely evil, but rather occasionally moody and 2) it is possible to modify a feline’s behavior if he’s still young, which Kitty is.
I don’t really know what to tell you in re: the genesis of the behavior, and as a result I can’t give you much help in preventing it, except common-sense prevention — when Kitty gets That Look, shut him in the bathroom for an hour or remove yourself from his line of sight, that kind of thing. And when your guests arrive, speak frankly to them about his volatility (and consider “grounding” him during their stay).
But don’t worry overly. You’ll find a vet to help you out, most likely, and if you don’t, no-kill shelters and organizations for feral/problem cats exist that can help you out if you decide he’s too much for you. Just give it time — cats can take longer than a year or two to settle down and stop acting like kittens.
Hiya.
I just have a very simple, very stupid, but rather important (to
me) question to ask your opinion on: How long does it take one to
get over their first love?
I’ve only ever been in two significant relationships, the first
for two years, a one-year interlude, and a second two-year
relationship (still ongoing). The thing is that even now I
occasionally find myself missing my first girlfriend (who I have
not seen since just prior to the end our relationship, the break-
up being electronically delivered).
The two girls and the relationships involved are so dissimilar as
to be incommensurable. The first relationship was deeply
passionate, even when it was bad, so there was lots of screaming
and crying, but lots of kisses and declarations of eternal love.
The second is much more real and stable and pragmatic and certain.
It’s not really a problem in my current relationship, since when
I’m around my present girlfriend I don’t think about my previous
girlfriend at all. It’s just when I’m left to my own devices that
I occasionally find my thoughts straying.
My question then is: Is it normal (or understandable at least) to
be missing your first girlfriend three years after you broke up?
Yours,
Bit Late to be Bereft
Dear Bereft,
It depends. Kind of.
You’re welcome!
Just kidding. Okay, seriously now. The first person you fall in love with stays with you for life in some ways, simply by virtue of coming first. In your case in particular, it’s no surprise that you feel a certain longing for the ex. An email break-up doesn’t give anyone closure, really, and let’s face it — drama is attractive on a lot of levels. Nobody wants that to be true, but still.
I think it’s normal and understandable, if also uncomfortable and unwelcome, so if you want to put it behind you a little more firmly, you might consider getting in contact with the ex and putting a few issues to bed permanently. But as long as it’s not harming your current relationship — i.e. you aren’t actively comparing the two of them and finding your girlfriend wanting — I don’t think it’s a huge hairy deal.
Tags: boys (and girls) cats etiquette friendships grammar the fam
